Seattle to Mozambique

How to Get a Cow Head in Beira

2007-07-27T19:49:00.000+02:00

I have realized that part of why I haven’t updated my blog in so long is that, given I have been here almost a year, things don’t seem new or odd anymore. And really, who wants to hear about someone’s normal day or normal weekend. But upon reflection I do have interesting things to say. Like about animal parts. It’s funny here how you have to order specific animal parts from people who are going to specific locations. For example, I love beef liver. I really really do. But you just can’t get beef liver at your local market. Here is how you get beef liver in Beira, Moz. You ask around and find out who is going to the riverside town of Buzi where they have lots of cows. Then you talk to a bunch of other people and figure out what parts of the cow they want. When you have organized just about a whole cow than you give that list to the person going to Buzi and wait for your part when they get back. Your part is often under the head with its tongue rolling around. And, though I do like beef tongue, I have not yet brought myself to order it because it comes with the whole head and I really have no clue as to what to do with the other head parts and they certainly won’t fit in my freezer until I figure it out.

What do Mud Houses and Rural America have in Common

2007-07-27T19:47:00.000+02:00

I’ve noticed too how city houses are always made out of concrete bricks and rural houses are always made out of mud. You can begin to tell when you are arriving in a town when you begin to see brick houses dotting the landscape between mud ones. I was trying to think about what a parallel in the states would be. It seems that rural and urban houses are made just about the same. Then I thought about condos. I think condos and apartment complexes are our cement brick houses. Once they begin you know you are getting close to a supermarket.

We just passed over the river Pungue and passed all of the straw houses that line its banks. The houses are straw because it is not worth making ones out of mud in the floodzone of the river. They are quick and easy to build and rebuild and allow people to live close to the river to catch and sell fish. In fact the bridge over the river Pungue is lined with mostly kids who brave death and hold out wriggling fish and gigantic fresh water shrimp to the passing cars/trucks and bycicles. I haven’t yet stopped to get any gigantic shrimp but I think it is just about time for me to try and cook some…head and all unlike the aforementioned cow.

My Birthday Run

2007-07-27T19:46:00.000+02:00

It was my birthday the other day. I tried desperately not to work but it seemed like the harder I tried to escape the more urgent phone calls I received, then the next day I tried to escape again…no luck. Finally the next day after that I had to travel to Chimoio in the afternoon. Fine, I thought, I will sleep in and lazily make my way to the office to leave for Chimoio. Unfortunately the sleeping in part lasted only ½ hour because at 7:30 in the morning Antonio, my Chimoio bound driver, woke me up and expected me to get in the car. Given that I was half naked and had no clothes packed I respectfully declined his offer. Ahhh. I had to run around and pack my bag, run into work and finish some urgent business and then 4 hours in the car and then more work when I hit the Chimoio office. All in all my attempts to have a relaxing birthday completely failed me but I still think 32 will be a really good year!!!

Happy Diaries

2007-07-27T19:45:00.002+02:00

I’ve realized something about this blog. I only want to write in it when I’m happy. It is completely opposite of my sad attempts to write a diary. I keep trying but really only write in it when I’m horribly upset or depressed and who wants to keep a record of that. But thinking about it now, I’ve been more prolific with this blog than I ever was with a diary. I guess that means that I’m mostly happy. What a lovely revelation. I think I’ll put that in my diary “I’m mostly happy” and leave it at that. It won’t be much of a interesting read for my kids or someone who stumbles upon it but it will be accurate.

Internet…Shout it out

2007-07-27T19:45:00.001+02:00

I have internet in my house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to shout it out. Yipee yahoo. It has been 10 months since I got off the plane and brought my wireless router. Now it is being used. That means I can skype and chat and email and download and surf all from the snuggly comfort of my cute little home tucked above the video store and down the street from a smelly bakery. Home home, there is nothing like it. Even with the rats and the cockroaches and neighbors who steal my water.

Ooooh Bats

2007-07-27T19:39:00.000+02:00

I love bats. I finally found out what type of tree the bats here love. It is very cool. You stand under or beside the tree and can feel the whoosh of bats around you. They never touch you…cuz they’ve got bat sense! There is only one problem…big gigantic scary looking spiders live in these trees too. I’m clueless as to why the bats haven’t eaten them all up but I’m almost entirely certain that they will touch me given the chance and then I would have to run and scream and be all girly…I hate that.

I was interviewed!!!

2007-06-21T11:03:00.000+02:00

I was interviewed by Matthew the other day. Check it out. He has some great interviews. After having concluded my interview I thought of a million other embarrassing moments (like when I got off a crowded bus by squishing through a million people only to find out all the buttons on my shirt had popped off) that all seem to focus around bus misadventures. Here is the link:

MY INTERVIEW (click it...I know you want to)

I promise, promise, promise to update my blog after I finish with work today. I'll tell you about how cold it is, how much I yearn for real coffee, and my plans for a beach weekend. I've also started writing down interesting phrases that I use in my job like "Well, we should try buying donkeys for that region to help people get to the hospital, and then we could also have them work on collective farming projects lead by the village chiefs". Yippee

On the Other Side of a Nervous Breakdown

2007-03-31T17:27:00.000+02:00

I’m finally back. Not back in any one place but back to a little sanity after a couple weeks of craziness. As many of you may know, I have had constant hormone imbalances that can be rather unpleasant. They don’t cause mood changes they are just annoying. The only solution it seems is to take birth control pills. The problem is that I go crazy on birth control pills. But I’m here, the climate and the food are different, I decided I would try it once again. Whoops!!!! I just spent my second day without birth control pills (after two weeks) and I feel like my own personality is returning to me. I got cranky (I yelled at a little boy on the plane who was crying because his ears hurt), I got irrational and cried at stupid things, I thought that everyone was out to get me. Yeah it’s a barrel of monkeys!! This time something good actually came of it. I had a nervous breakdown. A serious one. A crying at the office kind of nervous breakdown. As you know I’m usually smiling and very very rarely do I cry. This would be a first for me—crying at work.

Why was this good you ask? Because I rebounded from it in a lovely way. This nervious breakdown had been simmering for a while and when I cracked and came up for air again the birds were singing, the sky was a lovely blue and I decided to get a Bruce Willis notebook (see below) and write down all of the positive and funny things in my life. There are many. These are the things I’m going to share with y’all. This will be many posts so feel free to digest it slowly but it’s all going to be either positive or funny or both. Yeah!!!!

Meditative Necessities

2007-03-31T17:26:00.000+02:00

Because of my nervous breakdown (see above—and yes I do know that I’m not supposed to start a sentence with “because”) I have decided to seek out some kind of meditative practice that will help me de-stress and get some positive energy into my life. This will help my work and will REALLY help my relationships. One of the ways is taking a drive. There is a specific drive that I really like-the drive to the airport. There is a long stretch of road to the airport that has two well kept lanes (see post on potholes below) these lanes are bordered by lovely old and thick acacia trees that drip their green branches over the road and provide a lovely pattern of white trunks as you zip by. The backdrop to these trees is kilometers of machambas-sparkling green fields of rice and corn with occasional patches of water lilies that stretch out behind the trees. The sun glints off the water in the fields and women in colorful capalanas bend over their plantings with hoes in their hands. It is a scene out of a movie and a great meditation. The repeating pattern of the trees, the squares of plantings, the swaying hips of women with loads on their heads. Beira is beautiful at these moments—really beautiful!

The other meditative possibility is the mosque in Beira. I know that I’m not religious but I have always been fascinated by religions. I have also always found a little solace in walking into a church, sitting down and just letting myself go through my thoughts, hopes, dreams etc. In Recife there was one specific church in the middle of town that I wouldn’t pass without stopping in to reflect. It was beautiful—the whole place was carved wood from the side panels to the altar! The women’s mosque in Beira is not so beautiful—at least not the temporary one. They are reconstructing the women’s mosque and so right now women pray behind a zinc fence, below a zinc roof, and on carpet laid over sand, beside the emergency exit of the men’s mosque. Still, however, it is beautiful in a bare bones kind of way. The women and their gorgeous scarves make up for the drab surroundings. I had never been to a mosque before coming to Beira and was fascinated—the same way I am about everything that I don’t understand. So I asked my friend to take me. Unfortunately my friend is a man and we couldn’t enter together. So I got all dressed to go to the mosque. I was very worried about my outfit matching which my friend thought was hilarious because the whole purpose was to hear the prayers—not a fashion show. But it’s not very often I get dressed up and I wanted to do it right. So I put on black yoga pants, over this went a little light blue tank dress (thank you Katy Lou!!) and then a dark blue long sleeved shirt. I put my hair back in a low bun and wrapped my head in a mauve scarf and added long, sparkly pink earings. I think I look good in a headscarf—hmmm.

This is the same outfit I wore for the second visit to the mosque, this time in the company of my friend Shelagh (see Bruce Willis Notebook). She was all set too in a lovely brown and maroon ensemble. We walked in and went through the absolution cleaning with little trouble. Two other women, seeing that we were clearly out of our elements, sat down beside each of us in turn so that we could follow what they were doing—washing our hands first and ending with washing our feet. Then we walked over and got in line and sat through the whole service (do you call it a service?). It is actually a very nice chance to sit and meditate. It is much more relaxed than a catholic service, it is much more comfortable to sit on the ground than in a pew, and it is much more interesting to look around and check out all the women’s beautiful scarves. The children are allowed to run around and giggle, the women chat, and the sermon (do you call it a sermon?) drones on in the background. It is a great place to just zone out. I even was able to relax during the more formal prayers where you have to stand up and then kneel down and put your head to the ground. Having already been once to the mosque I was not so paranoid about doing it all right and just got into the rhythm of it. Now I just need to go with a Muslim woman who can tell me what I’m actually doing and what any of this means. For now I just do what I do in Catholic Church, zone out and try to think of all the positive things that I have and that I want in life—the words of the pastor or imam don’t matter so much and given the chatting between women at the mosque, and the general spaced out look of people at catholic mass, I don’t think their words matter much even for believers.

Gekos, Frogs and a Winston named Buddha

2007-03-31T17:25:00.000+02:00

There is a plethora of animal life in Beira and beyond that I just love. I think my favorite would be the geckos. Stuck on the wall and eyeing life with constant twitches, they eat all the mosquitoes and never seem to get feverish malaria. Ah the life of a gecko. I was sitting on the steps of my house the other day and notice the twitch of a gecko tail in a small space below the top of the stair railing. I peered in to look at the gecko and noticed that it was sitting amongst its opalescent eggs. They were big eggs for such a tiny gecko and you could see the dark little spots of life squirming in the eggs. I felt privileged to see these little eggs. They were in such a great spot that let the light shine through them but kept them safe from the birds and other creatures that wanted some protein for breakfast.

My next favorite creatures are these giant crow-like birds that fly around Beira. They are not extremely special but they gave me one crackup of a moment when I was pondering them in a car full of Mozambicans. These birds are black on top, white in the middle, and then black again on the bottom. They look like their in prison uniforms. I sat and looked at them and then it popped into my mind—they’re jailbirds!!!! Hahahah. I was giggling to myself in the car. Everyone looked at me funny and I realized it was one of those language moments that translation just wouldn’t do justice. I just looked back and smiled and left them to think I was just some strange white girl giggling to herself about nothing.

Frogs are also top on the list. The other night is rained really really hard here. Sheets of rain poured down and I woke up from my sleep to run around the house and close all the windows to keep water from washing away all the furniture. This resulted in me getting drenched but the rain usually comes with so much heat that this is actually a pleasure. The next morning I woke up to a lake in front of my house and a noise that sounded like one of those nature alarm clocks on crack. It was frogs-gone-wild. The frogs were so happy, so noisy, so crazy that you almost had to shout to have a conversation over their party. It would have been great to be a frog that morning. It would have been like being in Brazil when they won the world cup or in Boston after a world series win. I bet there were some hung over frogs the next evening.

Winston is the name that my friend Shelagh gave to the Beira dogs. They are fine with having one name, they all look the same. They are invariably tan, wiley and with a snout full of the garbage piled on the corner waiting to be picked up. They are Winston, the top of the evolutionary dog world, those who are scrappy enough to thrive in a big, crazy city. My favorite of the Winston crowd is a Winston named Buddha who lives at the HAI guest house in Beira. Winston Buddha is a dog that once belonged to somebody or other and then was passed onto someone else and ended up being the Chimoio HAI mascot. Winston Buddha is a terror—until you get to know her. She almost bit my hand off a number of times until I resolved myself to completely ignore her. Slowly she got closer and closer and put her little Winston head on my lap. Now, every time I go to Chimoio, she wines and barks with pleasure rather than terror and we spend many minutes making sure her belly is good and rubbed before I set my bags down in the house.

The big giant animals that you think of in Africa are sadly lacking. They are still there, they say, but it is rare to see them. But that is ok by me, I like the little, ubiquitous Winstons of Africa the best.

Car Troubles, Potholes and the Off-roading adventures of Beira

2007-03-31T17:24:00.000+02:00

My best friend in these parts has a car that it is hard for someone like me not to love. It has all the quirks and troubles that I have been accustomed to in my long career of crappy cars. My cars have had doors that don’t open (in one car all the passengers had to get in through the drivers side, in another I had to crawl in through the passenger door and over the stick shift to get in), tricky clutches, strange wires that had to be tweaked just so, and my little Mr. Mustard of a Toyota truck didn’t have a key for the ignition or an e-brake. I had to hot wire the baby and then open my door, place a block of wood and the floor and then roll back onto it for an e-brake. Bruno’s car has lovely quirks like these. The tires are wobbly, the driver-side window doesn’t roll down (try driving in 100 degree Beira weather to know how important that is), the battery cables are loosy goosy and need constant adjustment, the lights are low and wonky…we rattle down the road in blessed cluckyness that makes me feel at home.

The brilliance of Bruno’s car (that I promptly named Chicha) is made even wackier by the presence of no less than one million giant potholes that scatter themselves in crazy patterns along Beira’s roads. One day, bumping along in Bruno’s car, Moises (a data junky) decided we should do a study to see if there were more potholes or paved spots on Beira’s streets. I think the potholes would win hands down. These are not your run-of-the-mill bumpy potholes but instead are often locally referred to as graves. They are big, deep, car eating potholes that have to be avoided at ALL cost. Most of the time you are warned of their presence by a slight reddening of the pavement from the earth that bubbles out of their depths. Sometimes they take you by surprise and you have to do some last-minute swerving to avoid being swallowed up. Chicha is a master at avoiding these holes but alas, her wiggle is made even more pronounced when she swerves. She is like an aged ballerina--graceful, even when the wobbles set in.

Many of HAI’s cars also have various lovely quirks. Most of the older ones don’t have seats that go forward. This is not a problem for me because they all come equipped with first aid kits. I pop those puppies onto the seat and I’m riding in jacked up style. Some don’t have side mirror, others need some serious time before they turn over, and one doesn’t have a gas gauge that works. These cars always seem to fall into my hands—I think it’s fate. The other day I took one of these cars out to the beach of Savanha, a lovely beach down a long potholed earthen road. It is actually an island and you have to get there by crossing a river on a boat (more about that later). On the way back from this St. Patty’s day trip to the beach (more on that later too) we were bumping and thumping along when Shelagh looked back and quickly said in a calm tone---“um you should stop we have no back window”. Yup our window had popped right out and right into the bed of the truck. Luckily the window is a plastic affair and suffered no damage. I was still made to pay for re-gluing the window into its frame though. I actually felt a little resentful about this. It’s like the person that pulls out the one Janga block that makes the whole tower fall. It wasn’t that block, or that drive, that was the problem…that damn window was just hanging on its last Janga block and I got stuck with the trip that pulled it out.

Savana-St. Patty’s Day-2007

2007-03-31T17:22:00.000+02:00

I had a great green St. Patty’s day. There was no green beer or fake leprechaun hats but miles of beach and many a bright green palm tree. I went with Shelagh (who brought her Bruce Willis notebook—and added some great drunkin’ ramblings), my friends Bruno and Diana. We had a lovely day at the beach, swam in the river that forms the other margin of Savanah island and then wandered back to our cabin to start the coals for our meat. And meat we had!!!! Kilos and kilos of meat. Part of the issue was that we were supposed to be joined by two other people who decided at last minute to not spend the night. So we were filled with meat that had to be cooked or wouldn’t have lasted the night. We also had beer (unfortunately not green) and I made a little tomato/onion/garlic topping for our meat. I tried my best but was only able to get through half of my steak. Shelagh, oh Shelagh, in all her wonderfulness was able to finish her steak through and through and topped that off with 10 beers. Bruno tried hard to keep up but was not able to surpass the Irish girl on St. Patty’s day. We danced jigs with Shelagh’s i-pod stuck in our ears, we skinny dipped in the dark ocean (with massive bio-luminescence!!!!!!!—I have to add that to the creatures I love), and made films of the drunken ramblings of Shelagh being “deep”. I had a fantastic St. Patty’s day!!!!!

More Dancing—may it never stop!!!

2007-03-31T17:20:00.000+02:00

Mozambique is not Brazil—have I said that already? There is no dancing on every street corner in this city. But there is dancing—you just have to make more of an effort to go out and find it—or make it--for instance, dancing the aforementioned jig. The other day we also went to this cocktail lounge called ABC for Art Bar Café. I loved it. It is a cocktail lounge straight out of New York in the heart of Beira. But it wasn’t for this that I loved it. I loved it for the music. Great, funky music that got my tired butt dancing like the dancing queen I would love to be. The bar was also filled with black and white photos of life in Central Mozambique. My absolute favorite (close your eyes and imagine—oh wait—only close your eyes after you read the description) was taken in a concrete driveway. In the middle of the picture is a basin (I began to say that the basin was bright orange but the photos was black and white--hmmm) with a small dark Mozambican boy naked ready for a bath. The boy is clutching his little white dolly and his face is scrunched up in fear of a cat that is walking by. It was so beautiful this photograph. I think I might go back and see how much it would be.

There is also a giant nightclub called Monte Verde. It is a little outside of town—down that beautiful road that I described earlier. It has a strange mix of music, at times Mozambican, at times Elvis, and sometimes music so cheesy I have never heard it before. The club doesn’t start to get jumping until about 1am so you have to be well rested and ready to loose the next day in sleep. The times that I have gone we have nearly always seen the sun come up before we’ve left. The dance floor is small, the space to sit is large and it is always filled with strange bugs that must be attracted to the pulsing light. I usually sit and chat, jumping up to dance at some songs. My friend Bruno reminds me of a politician—he grooves in and around the whole complex greeting everyone. He knows them all and works the room like a master--makes me jealous. I love to do that!! Perhaps I’ll have enough time here. Perhaps I should be a politician. But the dancing is what is most important. Sliding around, wiggling my hips, letting the stress poor out of my body. Then there is a dance called “passada” that you danced squished up to another warm body and let yourself be pushed and pulled around the floor (that is—if you are a woman). I love this dance. So so nice. Why don’t we have more dances like that in the US????

Lions, Funerals and Cyclones--Oh my

2007-02-22T15:33:00.000+02:00

Wow I have been a bad bad blogger. It has been months. Well, first I went to South Africa and met up with my family. We all went to Kruger Park and saw many yummy animals. In fact it was almost too many animals. I felt like I was on a movie set. Every time we turned around there was an elephant or a zebra or lions bathing themselves in the sunshine. The highlights were the family of lions (one baby was 2 weeks old) who were warming themselves on the asphalt when we drove around the first morning. The morning walks were THE BEST. You have to get up at 4am but then you go into the bush with two guides with big guns. The sun comes up and you’re in the African bush with zebras, wildebeest, and giraffes all around you. There are hippos, lion tracks, tons of dung beetles…soooooo cool!!!!!!!

Then my sister and I came back up to Beira. We went out to a beach “resort” and jumped in the Indian Ocean and then came back and holed up in my house with the aircon on. Sadly one of the assistants in my program died while she was here and I went to the funeral. At the funeral (the first time I had seen my coworkers since being on vacation) everyone started demanding work related things and so the next day, right after dropping my sister off at the airport, I went back to work.

Work is going better and I’m starting to get all my different tasks under control. It helps that I’ve carved out a little space to work and organize all my piles of stuff. I’m going to make a detailed chart of all the projects I need to get done this weekend. By Monday I should be the most organized person ever. I’ve also moved all of my dissertation stuff to the office so I can start working on that next week.

Ok so this is just a general update. I’ll describe more of what it is like here in the next blog.

One more thing—there have been devastating floods and a cyclone here in Moz (I’m fine—they are not here). If you feel the need to donate something please see:

http://www.redcross.org.mz/

Anything would help and an American dollar goes a long way here.

Peace, M

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

2006-12-31T09:03:00.000+02:00

I am boiling in Moz waiting for the brand new spanking year. Everyone here celebrates with family until midnight and then they get together with friends. I have been invited to a co-workers family party but I don't know if I'm in the mood. I'll defintely be going out after midnight though.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!! I miss you all very much.

Here was my day the other day—step by step

2006-12-27T13:58:00.000+02:00

7:00—I wake up in Chimoio and grind coffee beans with a flashlight because I’m a total coffee addict and the only coffee was in whole beans.

7:30—Go to the Chimoio office and sit down with two of my assistants who are fighting. Everyone is arguing and the work is suffering. I’m going to have to keep on top of this situation. It’s hard when I’m based in Beira.

8:30—Meeting with one of the clinical advisors to discuss how we are going to do joint supervisory visits to all of the towns. She is a pediatrician and thinks that children are being left out of the treatment process. We discuss ways to monitor and track children in our activities and what kind of information we need to pass onto neighborhood leaders about children at risk

10:30—The car arrives that will take me back to Beira but first we have to go to the farm of my co-workers mother to pick up Mangos. We drive out toward Zimbabwe and stop at her basic but beautiful farm with donkeys, goats, ducks, chickens and a cooked pig hanging from the rafters of the kitchen. There are also three different kinds of mango trees and coconuts. We pick mangos, eat mangos, and chat for way to long and don’t end up leaving there until noon

12:30—We return to the office to pick up some packages that need to come to Beira. The woman getting them together is late so we head over to the Guest House where I was staying and I rip up the lemongrass and basil plants to put in my own yard. We return back to the office and then pick up the drivers kids. One more stop in the market to buy potatoes and we are off. We stop again on the road to buy charcoal and tomatoes but we fly in a new car (I was driving!!).

4:00—Arrive back in Beira, drop of my things, go back to the office to deal with paper work, pick up a car for personal use—tonight I’m taking the whole office out to a dance club. I’m given the minivan that fits 12 people.

5:00—Get home, take a shower (it is soooo hot), rest and do some laundry

11:00—Start to pick up the crew for the nightclub

6:00am—return home

Photos

2006-12-26T14:57:00.000+02:00

I've finally got photos up on Snapfish. I thought I would be able to create a link from here but I don't think that is possible. I'll send out an email with the link information. Let me know if you don't get the email.

Overworked and Hot

2006-12-26T14:07:00.000+02:00

Wow, I just realized how long it has been since I’ve updated my blog. It hasn’t actually been all that long but it feels like a lifetime to me. I’m in a roller coaster ride here in Moz. Some days I feel like I just don’t like it here—AT ALL—and that all I want to do is get on the first plane out of here. Other days I feel good and feel like my work is important and that I need to stay and follow this through. I’m not so thrilled about general cultural things here. This country does not grab me the way that Brazil did. There are few opportunities to dance, to go out, to interact with people. I’m all work and very little play and that is making Molly a sad girl.

My personal life is suffering but I have one good friend and my roommate Magda who is a total gift. Between the two of them I get out occasionally and at least I generally have someone to vent to when I get home. The other night I took matters into my own hands and organized a large group of co-workers to go out dancing. I stayed completely sober because I was the driver but my co-workers all got lit and let their booties shake. It was a lot of fun.

Today is the day after Christmas and I definitely feel like I missed the whole holiday. Not only is it broiling hot but I was alone for most of Christmas eve and Christmas until my friend Manuela came over to cook and my friends family (mostly Muslim) came over for lunch. My family finally called too and it was great to talk to them.

I’m trying to think of interesting stories to tell but its mostly just work. I’m trying to develop a model for home-based care here and develop monitoring and evaluation systems to go with this model. This all has to be coordinated with the national health care system with is proving to be difficult. Most people are so immersed in just trying to do all the tasks that they are required to do…when I come and tell them that systems are going to change and the model is going to change I can understand the look of exhaustion that this brings to their faces. But I have absolute faith that this system will work, it will be great, we will be able to help thousands of patients take care of themselves, take their drugs, make it to their appointments, and learn about how to stop the further spread of this horrible disease.

My energy is failing a bit but I expect to be revitalized by my trip to South Africa to visit Jens, Arnold, Isabel and Rebecca!!! I’m so excited that I could pee but that would just make me overheat even more. Send me your Christmas stories!!! I would love to hear what everyone has been doing. Much much love and holiday cheer!!!!!!!

You can dance if you want to:

2006-12-26T13:49:00.000+02:00

Dancing…y’all know how I love to dance. Today I was overseeing the end of the crazy breastfeeding cessation study in Catandica, a beautiful little town close to the border with Zimbabwe. The moms were all very enthusiastic about the baby food recipes that we had taught them and were preparing them every day. The only trouble was that some of their neighbors begun to say that these recipes were only for HIV+ moms and that every one making them was sick. That was a bad sign but the women were still happy to make the babyfood and the kids loved it. They even looked fatter and healthier. At the end of the focus group all the moms got up and started to sing and dance. I couldn’t help but join in!! It was so nice. I have finally got some pictures to show you all. Some of me and the moms and some are of the trip from Chimoio to Catadica. I’ll try to load them all up on snapfish with captions and all. Right now I’m so tired that I’m writing this kneeling on the floor with my head on the bed and typing without looking at the screen. I’ll have to edit things later. I haven’t had a break in what seems like a very long time. To add to that…I had hives all week. Nasty hives that I think are due to stress. I would have loved to stay in bed and have my hives get better!!! I turned on the AC at night for the first time since I’ve been here. They were itchy and hurt and even covered one of my breasts…ahhh. I had to go to work, under a tree, in the blazing heat, with a long sleave shirt on so that I wouldn’t worry the mothers. God it was awful. But I just had to step back for a moment and remember that these mothers have a much tougher time than some hives.

Travel Travel

2006-11-18T12:35:00.000+02:00

My life, at the moment, consists of a lot of travel. I can’t complain. I made my own schedule for the next few weeks. I chose to travel back and forth between the city and “the districts”—as the smaller towns are called. I chose this because I’m sick—I have a bad cold and I wanted to sleep in my own beg at night. Not that it isn’t lovely, it is very beautiful traveling through the Mozambican bush and watching the slowly changing machambas being cultivated, burned, and planted. The other day had me riding in the front of a Land Cruiser with a carton of 30 eggs to be able to use for the baby food recipes that are being taught to HIV+ mothers who need to stop breastfeeding. Traveling with eggs on your lap on some of these roads is a recipe for disaster. For three hours I had to keep the eggs balanced just slightly above my knees to absorb the shock of potholes and dirt roads. Some of my muscles became very tired but I’m not exactly sure which ones. The “holding-30-eggs-above-your-knees” ones. Two days later I was back bumping along the roads (without the eggs this time) and peppering my driver with questions about land ownership and cultivation in Mozambique. Turns out that Moz owns all the land and you’re deeded the rights to cultivate it. However, you can build what you want, do what you want, and give the deed to whom you want (commonly by selling it to them under-the-table). So what is ownership then really? If you have it, you use it, you sell it, don’t you own it? Anyway….I digress. Back to travel travel. So two days later I return to Nhamatanda (about 3 hours east of Beira) and we pick up a mom so that we can drive her out to her house to do an interview with her. We drive there for two reasons, 1) it is about 5 miles away from the town 2) there are not roads, streets, house numbers etc. if we didn’t go with her we would never find the place. Turn left at Aberto market, go straight until you see three mango trees, to your left is a little path past a river, continue until you get to another path that cuts through Dona Marias machamba…. These are very difficult directions to follow. So we bumped along on a dirt road into the middle of Mozambican cultivation. We stopped when we got to the right machamba and then climbed out and followed the winding path past small groups of mud and thatch houses sprinkled throughout the machambas. We finally got to her home and met her five children who were curious about our visit and piled around to listen. She shared her home with her father and step mother and there was one central mud/thatch house for sleeping and one reed and thatch building for storage and cooking and then some pens for animals. The floor was packed earth (a nice red color) and mango trees shaded the ground. We sat on bamboo mats outside and began our interview. When we finished she hiked with us back to the car so that we wouldn’t get lost. It was a lovely spot and you couldn’t hear anything but the smack of the hoes hitting the ground to turn it over, the chickens running around like chickens do, and the occasional shout from children.

Side note:
My house finally feels like a home. There is nothing like being sick to make you appreciate a nice clean bed and familiar things. And a flush toilet and shower!!!

Ants in my pants

2006-11-05T15:53:00.000+02:00

Sugar ants are a fact of life. Tiny but traveling in great swarms they can clean a glass of all its juice drops in seconds. To live is to live with the sugar ants. They have become my friends and my first line of defense against all things dirty. If a dish isn’t washed properly the sugar ants will let me know. It my clothes have bits of crumb on them the sugar ants will let me know. When I first arrived they attacked my computer with a vengeance. Little tiny ants were dancing in and out of the keyboard and prancing about in the DVD burner. They had a party and collected all the scraps. Nothing that you can buy at Staples will clean your computer so well. If only they would stay out of my hair (literally) I would be at peace with my tiny little friends.

Man Shoes and Diaper Bags

2006-11-05T15:47:00.000+02:00

So before I left for Moz I was running around trying to figure out what I needed to bring. Of course I’ve brought all the wrong things and I long for the clothes that I left behind. I’ve also somehow lost my lovely Brazilian flip flops on the way and it’s a tragedy I think I’ll have a hard time getting over. Sigh.

Anyway, there are two last minute purchases that I made in upstate New York that I use on a daily basis…my man shoes and my diaper bag!!!

I had been meaning to get new sandals but I was always unsatisfied with those that I was coming across. I knew it might take me a while to find good shoes here so I was hoping to have at least one good pair. That is where the hunting store in NY came in handy. Among the racks of camouflage (I broke down and bought my little niece a camouflage onesie with little white ruffles), guns, plastic ducks and other such paraphernalia, I saw a pair of lovely sandals. They were men’s sandals but I swear I don’t think any of the men frequenting that place would wear sandals like these. I had a strange moment of indecision about whether I should buy the sandals because they were clearly labeled for men (even though they fit perfectly). I got over my weird desire to conform to categories on shoe boxes and bought them. As I was leaving the store a couple walked in…she was wearing an American flag shirt over her many spare tires and he was wearing a shirt that on the front said “I’ll bring the whoop” and on the back said “you bring the ass”. Now everyday, when I put on my man shoes, I think of this lovely American couple and my little nieces camouflage onsie.

The diaper bag is a lovely invention. Mine is faux velvet on the outside with lovely little flowery designs and has a nice taupe color. Inside is a deep maroon and there are a million pockets and my files and computer fit perfectly inside. This bag goes everywhere with me. And no one would know that it was a diaper bag except for the fact that some of the inside pockets say things like “diapers” “bottles” “mother’s things”. Nobody has noticed so far! Plus I can put my lunch in it without worrying about spills etc. I think diaper bags rule!!!

The best part about these purchases is that they match!!! They are the same color and have similar embroidered patterns! Cheers to Diaper Bags and Manshoes (oh and skorts!!!)

When my work is wanted

2006-11-05T15:46:00.000+02:00

Last night I went out with a friend to have some beers with his friends from the medical school here in Beira. They had just finished their qualifying examinations. We showed up at this bar (I use the term bar loosely, usually the bars are just peoples apartments where they have mounted a counter in their front room and you sit on stools outside). When we arrived we sat down on plastic chairs in the sand outside the apartment building and everyone started talking again but no one was really talking to me. Being white in Mozambique is a paradox. On the one hand everyone knows you are there. You stand out like a sore thumb. When I go running along the beach or walking on the street I feel like I’m performing a show. It’s hard enough to not feel like a big lump while running but it’s even harder when you know that everyone is watching you.

On the other hand people tend to get very reserved around a new white person. Someone explained to me that this was because people don’t feel like they have anything to say to a white person—nothing in common. I’m not so sure that is it. There is an underlying resentment that seems to take some time to break. In some cases it does not seem to go away. Back to the bar, I slowly started conversing with a guy who had lived in Brazil for a few years. I was pleased because someone was talking to me besides my friend. He was pleased to talk about Brazil and the conversation began to be almost normal and relaxed. Then he started to push things over the edge, wanting my phone number and wanting to plan the next time that we would meet up. He got pushy and I moved my chair away and into the circle of med students. The conversation turned to their exam and they were all pissed at the way medicine was being taught in Beira. All of their professors are white, mostly from the Netherlands. All of their textbooks are in English. They have 30 plus computers that were donated from the States but only 3 actually work. All of the exam questions on their test came from Holland. One of the exam questions was “What is the major necropsy in Holland?” Seriously, how nonsensical is that!! That is exactly what I said to them, pointing out that there was surely not a question about Mozambique on the general exams in Holland. Finally, after making that comment, the students looked at me. Really the first time! That was the first sense that I got that they even knew I was there (although clearly my presence as the only woman and only white person is the group could not have gone unnoticed).

The conversation then turned to white people, with them apologizing for tearing into white people in my presence. They were all talking about how European countries and North American countries send their students here FOR experience but WITHOUT experience. Their surgery professor is a new general practice MD, he has had zero experience in surgery. How frustrating this must be. I left the gaggle of drunken med students for another bar close by. I left with serious questions about why I’m here and whether my presence is helpful at all. Perhaps I’m just adding to the problem and have become another white person exploiting the resources that should be going to Mozambicans. I feel like I have stuff to contribute. Stuff that I could contribute anywhere—here, in Seattle, in Brazil etc. But what good is that contribution if nobody wants it.

Even my relationship with my boss, Cunguara, is strained at best. He doesn’t communicate with me and I have tried my best to do my job here (consulting on community projects) without stepping on his toes or threatening his position. But I feel like that threat was already in place before I got here…one more white person coming to tell Mozambicans how it is. I know what I’m doing here. I know that I can do a good job but my work has to be wanted. I have to be heard and seen for the person that I am, for the professional that I am. Instead I’m afraid that I’m just seen for the white person that I am. The history that this skin color brings with it to Africa seems like an impossible thing to surmount. Hopefully I can at least find my way around it.

The Chata

2006-11-01T09:46:00.000+02:00

Chata is a particularly useful term to designate someone who is annoying, awful, bitchy etc. This is the term that I’m now using for my landlady. Yuck…she is the definition of chata. First I went to her house to discuss the rental agreement with Magdalena (my new roomy), Bruno (my friend from work) and the rental agent. She was brusque and rude and treated us as if she was doing us a favor by renting us this house. She tried to get more money out of us. That is when I became chata. I refused to pay any more and told her I had already seen other options. She responded by not addressing me directly and instead asking if “this girl” (ie. Me) was ready to move in right away. She spoke only to Bruno and looked down her nose at me. If I didn’t have a strong desire to unpack (after more than a month) and if Magdalena didn’t need to find a place, I would have walked right out of there. Ahhhhh. But instead I sat there and glared at her and she glared back at me.

We all got into our respective cars and drove over to the house to take a look. We couldn’t go inside so I just stood there and explained the layout of the house to Magdalena. This whole encounter happened in Portuguese…Magdalena doesn’t speak much English, Bruno does but generally we speak in Portuguese, and Chata doesn’t speak a word of English. She then turns to Bruno and tell him that we could return to see the house later but that Bruno would have to come because the guy that was currently renting the house doesn’t speak English…and I thought “what the f*** do you think I’ve been speaking to you in??” AHHHHH. Ok…maybe this doesn’t sound as chata on paper but it really really was.

Magdalena and I crossed the street to wait by the car as Bruno discussed contract issues with the Chata. We waited and waited and finally walked back across the street to see what was taking so long. Suddenly the Chata was all nice to us and told us we could call her anytime if anything went wrong. I smiled acidly at her and returned to the car with Bruno. It turned out that Bruno was very direct with her and told her that she was rude to us and that we had our doubts about living in the house because of her attitude. Magdalena and I were grateful that he was so direct. She made the pitiful excuse that it was all because it was Ramadan and she was hungry. But perhaps his directness would mean that she wouldn’t be such an awful landlady to us. Boy was I wrong.

This is the second night in this house and I’m going to the office tomorrow to see if I can break the contract that I signed. She is a racist b***!! She had the gall to come over unannounced last night and then talk about how black Mozambicans are always to trying to take advantage of things etc etc. I won’t go into all that she said but it took every ounce of calm in my body to not physically throw her out. Instead I opened the door and said goodnight and slammed it shut. My only out is that she told us, although there was no sink to wash clothes in, there was a washing machine in the kitchen that worked. Well, it doesn’t work! It seems like it hasn’t worked in a very very long time. Hopefully this will allow me to break the contract! Magdalena also is keen on leaving. The Chata will not even speak directly to her. I should have followed my instincts and left her apartment the minute I realized just how chata she was. I’ll follow them from now on for sure!!!!

My driving test

2006-11-01T09:44:00.000+02:00

I took my driving test today. I passed!!! I’m now all legal. It was quite an ordeal though. First we had a meeting all day long (8am-4pm) where everyone just sat around and complained. Ugh! We left and I was already tired and stressed from that encounter but I had to take advantage of the day because Pablo is returning to the states this week and I would have to wait a long time to take the test again.

Everyday after work the drivers and cars of HAI drive everyone to their respective houses—recolha is the name for this. This is a perk that no one wants to mess with. So when I said that I needed a car to take my driving test there was some protest from people still in the office after the meeting. Pablo’s solution was that I would do the recolha and drive everyone home. Yikes!!! Not only do I have to take the test, I have to drive with 8 people in a hulking Land Cruiser through the potholed streets of Beira driving on the left-hand side of the street. Oh well, I’m always up for a challenge. I dropped everyone off safe and sound and there were not even any near misses. I weaved in and out of the people, kids, chickens, goats, potholes, crazy drivers, bicycalists etc.!! All of this from the right-hand side of the manual car. Yay!!! I think the combination of learning to drive from my father (who was great but crazy), driving in Manhattan, Brazil, and finally in Cambridge on the left-hand side of the road, set me up well for this challenge. It was like playing frogger with the controls upside down. Whoohooo!!!

Focus on Focus Groups

2006-10-24T10:48:00.000+02:00

So I’ve decided to give you a snapshot of what my work has been like. I’ve been running focus groups in different communities in an attempt to understand how communities confront HIV/AIDS, what organizations are working with communities, and who we can recruit to help get out the prevention messages as well as find and care for the sick.

This week I was in Caia, a town of about 50,000 people. Most of those people, however, don’t live in town. They live spread out in small districts throughout the hills surrounding the town. The house groupings are by family connections. They are usually square huts with thatch roof that form into lazy circles. There are small paths weaving between the house groupings and their fields. There are some great water sources around (including a giant river—Zambezi) so there is an abundance of tomatoes, potatoes, sorghum, and plenty of grass for the goats. Because it is still the end of the rainy season the trees are very green but the grass is a lovely golden. Highlighting all of that is the rich terra cotta of the earth that you see when spaces have been beaten down for houses and paths from one group of houses to another.

The town center itself is small but growing due to a huge construction project to build a bridge over the river Zambezi. There is no plumbing in Caia, all water is drawn from wells, and electricity only comes on at 6 or 7 until 10 or 11 for those lucky enough to have generators and electricity lines. The town has wide dirt streets with whitewashed middle barriers where some scraggly trees grow. The architecture is simple here, mostly adobe or concrete, although there are some colonial-like buildings for government offices. The day that I left town there was a visit from the agriculture ambassador to promote a new way of farming so the whole center of town was covered in little colored flags strung on poles and across roads.

The place where we conducted our focus groups was in a complex called Floresta that had a basic little adobe restaurant, some rooms, and a hall for meetings and a well for drawing water to takes baths and do washing. All the buildings were cement and whitewashed walls. They all had a terra cotta stripe at the bottom about 3 feet up where the packed sandy earth had blown up and stained the whitewash. My room was in a complex of about 8 rooms that all shared a porch and a bathroom. There were basic bathroom facilities with well water in a bucket for bathing and a toilet (a nice ceramic toilet) that drained into the ground. They did have a sink with a drain but there was no plumbing so the drain just dripped onto the floor. This was generally fine except for my last night there when all of the workers for the agriculture department took up the other rooms. All men. Men make such a mess of bathrooms it’s incredible.

The hall for meeting was tinned roofed, had a cement floor, and adobe walls that went up about halfway to the roof. The structure was completed with a layer of chicken wire followed by a layer of mosquito netting. You would think that this would be great—all that fresh air…but the tin roof was baking by the afternoon and the late-afternoon brought high hot winds that lanced sand at us. We would usher the groups into the hall and point them to the seats we had set in a circle. There were plastic chairs and some fancy wooden chairs with cloth seats brought from some house near by. Invariable the people that came would humbly take the plastic chairs and would seem ill at ease if there was no space left and they had to take the wooden chairs.

We would begin the meeting introducing ourselves and explaining why we were there. Most people could understand Portuguese without a problem but were either not able, or to embarrassed to speak it. My partner speaks Sena but not as well as a local AIDS care representative who joined us the whole time and who translated for me. I would ask questions in Portuguese, he would translate them into Sena and then would translate the answers back as people spoke. Meanwhile my partner took copious notes. Overall people were shy and it took a while to get the group warmed up enough to not require prodding. By the end though, I was pleased with how the groups were going. As always, with groups of people, there are those who just won’t shut up and those who nearly refuse to speak, but I think we kept the talkers at bay and the timid we got motivated to speak. We would than all file out at the end of the session and go to the little restaurant to eat lunch or a snack.

Lunch was always roasted chicken and potatoes, or stewed goat and a corn mash (xima) that is similar to grits but thicker. The first couple of meals I ate with my fork and knife trying to cut around the little bits of bone. Finally I just got sick of how much time this would take and I started to eat with my hands. WOW! I noticed right away that my partners (including another nurse from the hospital) began to eat with their hands too. Not only that but they relaxed into their meal. I felt terrible. They had been eating with forks and knifes for my benefit. Let me tell you...it is much easier to eat meals with your fingers…and much funner too. Even the xima. People pick up a bit of xima and roll it around in their hands before dipping it in sauce and popping it in their mouth. And I’m sure most of you who eat fried chicken would agree that pulling pieces of chicken off with your fingers is really the only way to do it.

After our meal together (often in near silence because of the timidity of the people in our focus groups) we would shake hands (a polite way to shake hands here is to offer your right hand to shake while placing your left hand near the elbow of your right arm) and be on our way. The two times that people wanted to kiss cheeks was with groups of HIV+ people. In both cases one person came up and timidly kissed my cheek, when it was clear that I was happy to do that everyone came up to do the same thing. They had suffered so much and so many had been on the brink of death and shunned by their families. It was all at once tragic and lovely that they were so pleased about a little physical contact and a big smile, things that I’m lucky enough to have in abundance.

My House

2006-10-24T10:46:00.000+02:00

So I finally have a house and a roommate all rolled into one!!!! Although I balked at most of the houses I saw and was apprehensive about having a roommate, I think I found a great situation. First…my roommate…Magdalena. She’s a Bolivian doctor about the size of a pea and either sleeping or in constant motion. She pretends as if she is very serious but makes me laugh about 1,000 times a day. We are sharing the Guest House right now and I feel lucky that I didn’t have a house before she arrived. We work in different programs and so I think it would have been a while until we got to know each other had we not been staying in the same place. She loves to tease me about being forgetful and absentminded (the other day I got paper towels instead of toilet paper at the store even though it said “Paper Towels” in English on the package). I think she’s a riot! Plus her serious side will keep me on the straight and narrow!!

The house is a big colonial house that was divided into four apartments. We will have an upstairs apartment with a little garden and a garage. The garage is important because I’ll be able to take HAI cars for the weekend if I have a garage to store them in (this is assuming that I pass my driving exam given by my boss!!). You enter through the little garden and climb up one flight of steps to the front door. You enter the big living room with dark wood and magenta antique sofa and chairs which enters into the dining room with a big table and then ends in the master bedroom. To the right of the living room are two other bedrooms and a big kitchen with a little porch to hang clothes. The bathroom is between the two rooms to the right and is lovely and clean and has a hot water heater. This is luxury!!! Oh…and I forgot to mention the screened in porch off the living room! This house is so expensive for Mozambicans—no Mozambican but governors and wealthy businessmen could afford it-- and I don’t think I would have chosen it except that 1) Magdalena needed a place soon too 2) no one was showing me any other options of normal places despite my constant pleas 3) my Boss was making indications that I should get a place and free up space in the guest house. So I caved and got a nice place with crazy antique furniture and giant beds. Not only that but we have already made plans to get wireless internet. On the one hand I’m excited to live in such a beautiful place. On the other hand I’m disgusted at myself for caving in and living like a rich mazunga (foreigner). At one point someone who was working for HAI wanted hardship pay—this is the least form of hardship I’ve ever experienced!!! That person must have been nuts.

God is in the Bush

2006-10-20T10:08:00.000+02:00

One of my main missions on my trip to Africa is to go to church. It’s funny because of my total revulsion to the mission of missionaries but I’m here to understand, not proselytize. There are many different churches in Mozambique but for sure the ones that seem to be springing up everywhere are the Evangelical churches that were so popular in Brazil. Here I am, in the middle of the African countryside, surrounded by savannah and pockets of small villages with grass huts and goats milling about. You don’t see many large congregations of people except under two circumstances, wells and churches. People have to walk long distances to get water and no one would disagree that this is a necessity that justifies the energy expenditure…but church? Perhaps it is just as important as water. Picture a small village of mud and grass huts with a small wooden sign balancing on a stick in the middle of the road, pointing to another mud/grass structure. This is the Universal Church of God and people seem to be dressed their best for church today.

I know many of you will be slightly repulsed by this religious fervor but it is so important to understand. If people put the search for God on par with the search for water then it is very very important indeed. This also puts pastors in particularly powerful positions. Imagine that the pastor is the one that controls the pump. His word is law and it seems that many seek his advice before any other. This has enormous implications for anyone working in health in Moz and enormous possibilities too. Imagine an army of pastors referring people to the hospital, taking care of the sick, educating people about HIV. This is happening now but it is sporadic and there is a lot of difference in the approaches that people take. One pastor will explain that this disease is something that affects the innocent and we need to do all we can to save everyone, another pastor will explain that people get HIV because they sinned and therefore it is those who don’t except the pastors message that ultimately die. If we can get these pastors together and they can teach each other I have faith (hee hee) that they will all bend more toward the thinking of the first pastor than the last. They have to meet people living with AIDS, people who have gotten better, people who can now feed their children and wash their clothes…they need to look at these people and decide whether or they should live or die and whether their children should have parents. I do have faith.

The Season of Burning Fields

2006-10-12T17:40:00.000+02:00

12 October 2006

Thank you all for your opinions on where I should live. Unfortunately I still don’t have a place. The problem has been time. This last weekend I took a short trip to Chimoio and when I got back it was already time for me to start traveling out to the districts to participate in focus groups. I have been picked up every day this week for a drive to Dondo, as small town that is about an hour outside of Beira. The drive to this town has become very familiar to me now and it is starting to feel less and less new and more and more like home. It is almost mango season. There are mango trees everywhere and the mangos hang off of the bright green trees like little Christmas tree ornaments. The mangos are green too but they are slowly starting to turn ripen and turn red. Soon, I suspect, there will be baskets of mangos for sale everywhere. I love a juicy mango!!! It is also the season of burning fields. On the drive to Dondo there are fields (machambas) on either side that people are starting to turn over for new plantings. This process begins by burning off the bright yellow flowers that are beautiful but are weeds to the farmers. Small square sections of these fields are burned and the air is filled with smoke. The blackened fields are then slowly turned over by women and men with hoes. I haven’t seen any planting yet, just burning and hoeing.

The focus groups that we are running are very interesting. Curandieros (traditional medicine/religious practitioners), pastors, people-living-with-Aids, AIDS activists, church mothers, we spent the week sitting in groups with them and discussing HIV/AIDS, the health system, and the necessity of home-care for the sick. All of these groups want to help, want to stop the death of their community, but they don’t have any good system for finding out who needs help. It’s all haphazard. Hopefully with this work we can figure out a good system for organizing everyone, getting people on treatment, and getting the health system to respond to the communities needs. Next week I’ll be spending the week in Caia…a small town about 6 hours north of Beira…doing the same work. Then I’ll be back for the weekend and then off to Marromeu, an even smaller town a little west of Caia.

The biggest frustration is not speaking Sena. That is the most widely spoken language in the center of Mozambique. There is also about 45 other languages spoken throughout Mozambique but everyone thinks that the best one to learn is Sena. Second best would be Ndao. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn them both. The moment that I return from Caia I’m going to find someone to start to teach me Sena. It’s a beautiful language. There is lots of rolling and fluttering in the language, no clicks though. I’ve learned to say hello and no thank you, that’s all so far. The focus group with the curandeiros was almost entirely in Sena and in many of the other groups there were a considerable number of people who could understand my questions in Portuguese but preferred to answer in Sena.

Hopefully soon I will have a little time in Beira to find a place to live. I have been mostly in the Guest House but different people are always coming through and I don’t feel like I can really unpack. It will be so nice to have a place of my own, be able to unpack my bags, find a decent hammock and a nice pan to fry eggs!! Rebeca, if you are reading this, I want to thank you for convincing me to bring the little stove-top espresso pot. It has been put to much use already. Good coffee is hard to come by and a good coffee maker is even harder. The other wonderful thing has been my little bucky travel pillow. The pillows that I’ve encountered here are all about 6-inches high and hard as rocks…not good. I’ve been using my little bucky and have been so happy with it that I think I might just keep on using it as my pillow when I get back to the states too.

p.s. don’t you just hate it when you’re sitting there working and you feel a strange sensation on your leg where there is a big sore from scratching a mosquito bite, you look down and there is a baby cockroach crawling around on it 

A Sense of Space

2006-10-12T17:39:00.001+02:00

08 October 2006

I finally got out of the city on Thursday morning. It was great for my loneliness and even more wonderful to finally get a sense of where I was in the world. I left the city last minute with Pablo who was traveling to Chimoio (Chee-moy-oh), a small city in the mountains toward Zimbabwe. He was planning on staying there Thursday night and then returning on Friday. We had to stop by another even smaller town called Gondola first because he has to check out the new construction going on at the hospital there. The ride was wonderful. We passed out of the city and then through an area of machambas.

Machambas are small plots of land that people in the city use to grow rice, vegetables etc. It is a lot of work but absolutely necessary for life! The main preoccupation of people who are HIV+ is the inability to work in their Machambas. It becomes an awful spiral. A person is too sick to work in their machamba, they don’t produce enough food, they don’t have the energy to get better and their side effects from the drugs get worse. The World Food Program only gives out food for the first three months of HIV drugs. After that everyone is on their own unless they can hook up with another association that provides food. To make matters worse, the drugs themselves make people very hungry. It’s a vicious cycle.

The area of machambas, however, is beautiful and seems very fertile. After you pass through the machambas you get into the countryside. The road is variable. At times it is a nice paved road and at times it is a dusty dirt track with giant potholes you have to swerve to avoid. It is so bad in some places that there is a prohibition of people driving HAI cars after 6pm. The little towns that you pass are often a mishmash of different house styles. Toward the front of the road are often little stores and markets that have whitewashed walls and doors that lock. Then there are houses made in the same style that was common in Brazil. You build the walls from straight branches interwoven, then you fill in the weave with mud. The big difference is that, in Brazil, the roofs are completed with terra cotta tiles or corrugated tin, here they are often completed with thatch. The other houses that are the most common are called rondavals and are made also of stick walls filled in with mud but topped by round thatched roofs. Occasionally they are decorated with paint and sometimes they have small windows cut out of the mud walls. They are organized in big compounds that are near machambas.

The landscape is always hard to describe but it is very open from Beira to Chimoio, there are large vistas with acacia trees and other trees that I don’t know the name of. It is flat as a pancake for much of the drive and then you begin to see mountains in the distance and the elevation climbs. The mountains also look sparse, in comparison to Seattle where at least one thing is growing in every free inch of dirt. But it is beautiful in its openness. There are little markets in the small towns that sell used clothing (I think all from American used-clothing companies), tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, okra and peppers presented in lovely colorful stacks. The road is shared by many trucks making their way to and from Zimbabwe and many people walking along the road (mostly kids back from school and women carrying water). The women almost always wear colorful wrap skirts that most of you who have seen pictures of Africa can imagine. There are also many men on bicycles laden down with either sacks of charcoal (giant sacks—6ft tall) or bundled thatch.

I’ll stop with my description there because I’m sure that I’ll have much more to say later. I arrived in Chimoio and met the staff of HAI-Chimoio and worked in their office for a few hours before Pablo and I went out and had dinner. If you have the money for it, there is a surprising diversity of food here. We had really nice burritos!!! Burritos I repeat!!! And, of course, some grilled squid. For those of you who know me well…you know I have a little obsession with squid. I LOVE SQUID. How perfect, then, that you can get squid all over the place here. Really good, giant, tasty squid. Anyway, I’m off on a tangent again. Before we left for dinner Wendy, an ex-pat that works at HAI-Chimoio (a different Wendy from the one mentioned above) said that Pablo had told her that I was joining her for a HIV counselor retreat the next day. Surprise!!! I didn’t know that was in my plans but it did sound interesting. So the next day (after spending a beautiful night in the very comfortable HAI Guest House in Chimoio) I was picked up by Wendy and driven to a big resort in a little town called Inchope. Counselors from all over two provinces came to learn a little and discuss their experiences. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say and to meet the people who I’ll be working with in the small towns in these provinces. We danced at night, had some more meeting items in the morning and then all got ready to go. The car situation was a fiasco and a small group of us were waiting for a few hours. Normally this would be no big deal but it takes about 3 hours to get back to Beira, it was 3pm, and all of us knew that cars could not be on the road after 6pm. Ahhh…we all thought we would have to spend the night in one of these small little towns. But Antonio, our driver, pulled through for us and got us into the city limits (you can drive within the city limits after dark) with 10 minutes to spare.

Ok…I think that is probably enough reading for now. I was going to tell you the story of the baboon who was trying to make love to a chicken but I’ll save that for tomorrow. Cheers!!!

The Monkey and the Chicken (not a tale for children)

2006-10-12T17:39:00.000+02:00

12 October 2006

So I’ve decided to write to y’all about the monkey and the chicken. For those of you who are offended easily it would be best to stop reading now. For the rest of you…well…most of you…here is the tale of interspecies love.

I’ve already mentioned that I spent the weekend with HIV counselors at a retreat. The place of the retreat was a resort in the middle of nowhere but a good crossroads from all of central Mozambique. The resort had a restaurant and hotel like rooms that surrounded the center of the resort with a pool (that no one used) and cages that held: baboons (mother, father, child), turkeys, guinea hens, ducks, little monkeys, and pigeons (ok—maybe doves but they looked like pigeons). It was actually kind of a sad little scene. I must say…a baboons butt is definitely more disturbing up close than it is in a zoo or on TV…much much more disturbing. But I’m off track. There was one little adolescent male baboon that for some reason was not caged. I don’t know if he originally was caged and was rejected by the other baboons or if he had come in from the bush. (Sidenote: I’ve seen a number of baboons on the side of the road and running about…I find it kind of creepy given that they seem so human-like, or maybe we just seem so baboon like). The little baboon was a terror and would run after people, climb all over the cages, and generally riot around. We all gave the little baboon a wide berth.

At one point all the counselors broke up into groups to discuss difficult cases. I accompanied one group of counselors outside and we began to debate the cases. We were soon distracting by the little baboon who seemed to be mauling a chicken. Yeah…it wasn’t mauling. The baboon, hopped up on adolescent hormones, was trying to form an interspecies bond with the chicken. The problem was that the chicken was little and the baboon big and all the grabbing was not healthy for the little chicken. We tried to chase the baboon away but it just kept coming back. At this point however, for those of you who are horrified at the cruelty to this poor chicken, the chicken had plenty of opportunity to escape. It didn’t. It would run away when the baboon got really aggressive but then it would sit down and let the baboon approach it again. Still, it was not going to be able to take all of that lovin’. We finally called some people who worked at the resort and they took the chicken away. Those who got close to the scenes of love related that actual interspecies penetration took place. YUCK!!! To top it all off the little baboon, pissed that his chicken-lover was rudely wrenched from his grasp, ran over to our group, sat down beside us, spread his legs wide open and began to piss in our general direction.

The Trials of the Shit Police

2006-10-12T17:38:00.000+02:00

05 October 2006

So the Guest House that I’m staying in until I find a place (that apartment in the city was already rented…boohoo) is right across the street from a big open field. It is also kitty corner to what would be considered a shantytown in Brazil. The residents don’t have running water or bathrooms in their homes. So…they tend to relieve themselves in the field. It makes perfect sense to me. Where else is there to do it? I’ve made it my mission to find out. Anyway…back to the Shit Police.

Being a Shit Policeman is an actual job. It’s called a Fiscalizador. The job of this unfortunate person is to give tickets and fines to people who shit in the open field. The other day, Wendy, my colleague and roommate, was at home in the Guest House when she heard shouting right across the wall. A man was being beaten and blood was running down his face and front. He jumped over our wall to escape the group of people that were after him. Wendy, of course, was a little disturbed by this and went to ask the guy who guards the house what the deal was. It turns out that the bloody guy was a Fiscalizador but he was not giving out tickets to everyone. It was hard to tell if the group was upset that he wasn’t ticketing more people or if they were upset that he was only ticketing some people discriminately but they were obviously upset at the way he was performing his duties.

How much would this suck. Not only are you the Shit Police but if you don’t police the shit in an adequate manner you can get the shit beat out of you!!! All of this is to say that you won’t find me shitting in an open field anytime soon, at least not in the city of Beira. Who knows, perhaps in other places the Fiscalizadors do not take their shit so seriously.

Loneliness

2006-10-12T17:33:00.000+02:00

05 October 2006

All of you who know me know that I’m a very social person. I thrive off of company. This is not to say that I don’t like to be alone but in order to feel whole I like to have good friends around me. So far being in Mozambique has been hard because there is a unspoken separation between me and my Mozambican colleagues. Part of it is that life here is very hierarchical. Being treated deferentially does not make a good environment for friendship. Granted, I’ve only been here two weeks but it is strikingly different that any other situation that I’ve lived in. I’m used to making friends easily and being equals with those friends no matter the difference in our education, income etc. but here I feel more like an outsider gazing into the world more than anywhere else.

Part of the issue is that Mark and Wendy were here and I got rides, went to dinner, and hung out with them. This was great and they are really fun, hilarious, wonderful people. But they left today. Mark went back to Seattle and Wendy went to South Africa (albeit only for the weekend). So it has really been only half a day that I’ve been rattling around in this Guest House alone. But it’s funny how loneliness hits you in the pit of the stomach like a sucking wound. I think I would take any knee injury over that feeling. Don’t worry…I’m just waxing sentimental and I’ll make friends and all of this will pass but it makes you appreciate the friendships you do have. It also makes you appreciate internet access, telephones, and all the ways that I know I could chat with people if I spent enough money and time seeking out ways to do it. I also need to get off my ass and start figuring out how to make friends here. It will be a challenge but you all know how I love challenges. So if you go out to dinner tonight raise a beer to me please and wish me luck in making friends and know that I appreciate all of you!!!

Advice needed...where should I live?

2006-10-03T08:59:00.000+02:00

I’m alive and well but without regular access to email . I don’t know if this will change anytime soon so these entries might be even more sporadic. Things are going well but I’m starting to feel the intensity that comes with this job. It is a lot of work and then a lot more work on top of that. Then I have to squeeze in my dissertation in the off moments as I sit around and boil in the heat.

Everyone has been asking about the food. I’m afraid that I haven’t had very little traditional food. I finally had real Mozambican food last night. I went over to Flora’s house, who is a nurse and runs many of our maternal health programs. She cooked massa, a typical Mozambican/African dish which is essentially corn flour and water mixed together to make a paste. I liked it despite hearing from many others that it was awful. I thought it was much better than rice. That was accompanied by a bean and vegetable stew and some beef with tomato sauce. It was a really good meal. Yum. I ate my food with my fork but I think next time I’m going to dig in with my fingers like my Mozambican colleagues. I love to eat with my fingers.

The coffee here really is bad. Bad bad. Luckily I did bring a couple packets of Hawaiian coffee but it is going to be a sad day when this runs out. I did finally figure out where to buy vegetables without having to go to the big South African supermarket. Wendy and I went on a search for hot peppers and realized that just around the corner from the Guest House there were many people selling all the things I love…collard greens, potatoes, carrots, onions, nuts, and yummy fried potato things.

I’m having difficulty deciding on a place to live. Right now I have three options. 1) a two-bedroom apartment above the offices in the center of town 2) a huge house by the beach 3) a room in the house of a fun bubbly woman who works at the hospital. Here are the things to consider (I would welcome thoughts on this):

-The city apartment is secure and I could have access to HAI cars because there is a place to park them. The drawback is that during the weekend the whole place is kind of a ghost town. The upside is that it doesn’t feel too big, it’s close to markets, and its close to work.

-The huge house by the beach is by the beach  but I’m not really a huge beach person. I could park a car there but I would need to commute into work. Living alone in such a huge place would feel weird and lonely. It would also feel like the most imprisoned/colonial option. The upside is that I would have lots of room for visitors.

-The room in the house of Laurinda has its definite benefits. It is in a neighborhood outside of town that is a REAL neighborhood. Not like the beach house which is in a neighborhood of closed walls, lots of ex-pats and not much life on the streets. This neighborhood has people, corner bars, and lovely fruit trees. The drawbacks are that it is far from work and I would not have a space of my own. I would have to take two chapas (minivans that pack pack pack people in) to get to work. I also wouldn’t be able to use HAI cars because there is no secure place to park them. But the huge thing…I am starting to think that I really want a space of my own. It has been so long since I’ve lived by myself. It would be nice to have my own space and my own things. Laurinda lives with her 5-year old daughter and I would have my own bedroom but I would still feel like a visitor in the rest of the house.

Those are the options. If you have suggestions/opinions I would love to hear them. Now I’m off to work again. Hopefully there won’t be so many power-outages today. The battery on my laptop is not the best in the world.

First Full Day at Work

2006-09-26T20:41:00.000+02:00

Well my first day is done and I’m exhausted. I don’t know how frequent my entries are going to be now. Sigh. But it is very interesting work. Today I just went over the information that has already been gathered from focus groups with church leaders, health officials, and people living with HIV/AIDS. They were asked about HIV treatment and their communities. Fascinating stuff. The Evangelical church that was huge in Brazil is also here and some of the members seem to have the same take on sickness…that it is caused by bad spirits from other animistic religions and that the only way to get that bad spirit out is some intense praying. What does this mean for HIV? Well it means that you can be cured by Jesus Christ. I bet those missionaries that I met on the plane will be pleased as punch to hear this.

Then I met with all the people who are conducting these interviews and I’m excited to start to work with them. Cungura, the guy who I will be working with, is great and very down to earth and funny. He’s excited for my help…I only hope I can live up to his expectations. He drove me to the Day Hospital (this is the name for the HIV/AIDS clinic inside the main hospital) and Mark and Lorina (a woman who runs a transmission from mother-to-child HIV study and whom I might live with!!!) showed me around. I was very impressed with the Day Hospital. It was spacious and organized and very clean.

I came home to cook dinner. Something that is easy since I can get pretty much get the same ingredients that I could get in Brazil. In fact, in general, I feel very comfortable and at home. It is so similar in so many ways. If you just take out the upper and middle classes from Brazil…whalla…you’re in Mozambique (ok and put more clothes on everyone--there is no tiny hotpants around here). I just wish that I could live in a Mozambican neighborhood. Unfortunately I would be the only white person there and therefore would not be particularly safe. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I have to live outside of society for a while. And don’t worry Mom and Sis…safety is my priority. Hopefully I’ll be so immersed in work that I won’t be too depressed about this.

Miss you all…many kisses and hugs

Oh and yesterday I saw something new...giant turkeys being herded by a little boy with a stick in the center of town. I'm familiar with goats and chickens and such but the turkeys I think are my favorite. I might try to track him down closer to thanksgiving and see if he sell me one...yummy.

Joy!!!!!!! Life!!!!!!

2006-09-24T21:56:00.000+02:00

I’m happy and content. I finally feel excited about what I’m doing and what this year will entail. I have to say that I wasn’t until tonight. Not really. What changed you may ask? Well I finally got to see the city…the REAL city. Not the expensive houses and the city center but the neighborhoods were most people live. Guess what…I LOVED THEM. They were full of people and full of life and music and bars on the corner and families on bicycles and intricate paths between simple houses that wove here and there. Beira has all that I loved about Brazil. Thank god!!!!! This will be good. It won’t be the same and it won’t be easy but it will be good…it might even be great! Thank you Mark for showing me Beira!!!

My Audrey Hepburn Pornos

2006-09-24T18:23:00.000+02:00

I have forgotten to post my favorite part about passing through customs in Beira. So let me set up the scene. Here I was arriving with two suitcases, a carry-on bag and a backpack that contained two laptops, one of which I probably should not have been bringing into the country. Plus I had various other electronic things in my backpack that I could have to pay a bribe to get in the country. So…needless to say I’m a little nervous as I roll my first suitcase over to the table to be inspected.

The customs agents looks at my stuff. I had put all my clothes in giant zip lock bags to make packing easier. He takes this as a sign of new things (for which I would have to pay a fee). So I happily take out my ratty clothes and show him that they are really not very new at all.

On to the next bag (which means the backpack is getting closer to inspection and I’m getting more nervous). I open it up and he pulls out the still wrapped package of movies that I bought at Costco. My friend Ana, who’s house I’m staying in right now, asked me to bring DVD’s for those nights when there is nothing to do. I’m not good at figuring out good movies so I went to Costco before I left and sat on the phone with Kate giving her my options and seeking her advice. She advised me to go with the Audrey Hepburn package of four movies.

Ok...so he pulls out the Hepburn movies...here is how the conversation went:

Custom’s Agent: These are pornos
Me: no, no they're not pornos they're classic American movies
CA: they’re pornos
Me: no they really aren’t pornos…see they're classics, old movies.
CA: open this package!! (I opened the DVD box and he pulls out all the movies) these are pornos!!
Me: (laughing at this point) no they really aren’t
CA: open up the packages. I think that the movies in here are not the same as on the front (I’m thinking…yeah that’s why they were still in their packaging, in the US they sell pornos disguised as American Classics)
Me: See the titles are the same

The Customs agent was getting more and more agitated through this whole process and finally, when it was clear they were not pornos, walked away in disgust. I stood there thinking he was going to come back when he turned around and waved me through. I gathered up my bags and my backpack and thanked Audrey Hepburn, the porno star, for getting me through customs without having to pay any bribes!!!!!!!

Drums beat my heart

2006-09-24T17:58:00.000+02:00

I have spent some time getting around the city now and I’m starting to kind of get the lay of the land. I now feel comfortable squeezing in a small van and careening about the city with 18 other people squished beside me. But I still feel so distant from life here. I guess it has only been a couple of days but it struck me last night as I lay in bed under my mosquito net and heard the distant drum beats that sounded just like the candomble (Brazilian voodoo) ceremonies. It got louder and louder and I sat there in bed wiggling…wanting to go out and see it, wanting to dance, wanting to feel Mozambique. But I don’t know anyone that I can call up at midnight to go hunting for a religious ceremony with me. I hope this will change soon…I want to stop wiggling and actually go places.

Discovering the Joy Again

2006-09-23T17:34:00.000+02:00

22 Sept 8:09 am (5pm for me)

Today has been much much better. I finally feel like I’m getting into the groove of Beira. I can understand everyone…this is a huge plus. And there are a thousand things that remind me of Brazil and make me feel at home. I made a friend, Bruno, who took me all over the city and has already taught me a lot. I also moved out of the funky hotel and into my friends Ana and Pablo’s house. Unfortunately they left but my colleague Mark arrived and I have so much work to do already that I have to put all my feelings of loneliness aside.

I went to visit the hospital yesterday but it wasn’t planned. I fell in a hole. Yes…you can laugh. I fell into a drainage hole that didn’t have a cover. I fell up to my knee. Luckily I was with Ana and Pablo and they took me to the hospital so that I could get a tetanus shot. I needed the shot because something poked into my knee. There were three little holes that went very deep. It was quite gross and I bled profusely. But now I’m just sore and walk with a little limp.

The experience at the hospital was very interesting. It was so so so so basic! Keep in mind that this is one of three central hospitals in the country. It had very little in the way of supplies, just walls and a floor and some basic instruments, but the staff there treated me well. That is until I went into the room to actually get my shot. I asked the woman to give me the shot in the right arm (since I’m left-handed). She didn’t say a word, just grabbed my left arm and jammed the needle in. Now I have a sore arm and a sore knee.

But I feel joy again. I feel joy in this place that I didn’t feel yesterday. There is a lot of sadness and it is still awfully awfully poor but there is joy here too.

Ah travel...

2006-09-23T17:07:00.000+02:00

21 Sept 2006 9:12am

I’ve decided to keep my computer set to Seattle time so I always have a little orientation. It’s 9:12am for most of you right now and it’s 6:17pm for me. We are nearly a full day off. So…here I am in Beira, Mozambique. I spent the night last night in Johannesburg and, thanks to melatonin I got a normal nights sleep and I’m on this time schedule now. Getting into Joberg was great. Arnold, my cousins husband, is from Joberg and his parents came and got me at the airport and I spent the night at their house. They only live 10 minutes from the airport so I really didn’t get to form an impression of Joberg at all but I did have tea, and a wonderful shower (probably my last hot shower for a long long time), and a comfortable bed to sleep in. Arnold’s mom made a great breakfast in the morning and then shuttled me back off to the airport.

Wow…that was complete havoc. No one knew where I was supposed to check in for my flight so I went from one end of the terminal to the other asking anyone who looked like they might know. This journey took forever because there were swarms of people with swarms of carts and lines for check-in that wrapped around other lines like some complex cat’s cradle. Every time you’d move a foot you would wait for a few minutes for another foot of space to open up and then you’d have to shove your cart into that space fast!! I have to admit that I actually rammed into the ankles of some old Indian woman trying to get my cart through. Sorry old Indian woman!!

Finally someone showed up who could check me in, though at that point I was not sure that my bags were actually going to the right place. Oh well…better leaving them with some guy who seems to know what he is saying then to wade through the throng of humanity again. My flight itself was only slightly harrowing given that we took off straight up and landed coming straight down…there was nothing gradual about our take off or landing. I also have to say that my flight mates were down right scary.

1) an American couple on Holiday. She had been crying and screaming at her husband in the airport because no one would let her through the throng of people. I suppressed the urge to slap her silly and tell her that it was because no one cared if she got through. If she wanted to get through she would have to rely on her own silly little head and do it. Her boyfriend looked frustrated with her as well but vainly attempted to tell people to step aside.
2) Missionaries…can’t go anywhere these days without of few of these beside you. All cheery and pepped up on Jesus. If the problems of the world boiled down to believing in Jesus Christ it would all be so simple. Unfortunately these cheery kids will soon find, I suspect, that even those who believe in Jesus die of AIDS.
3) Elephant Hunters…no shit. A couple from Arkansas who run a gun business and were traveling up further north in Mozambique to hunt elephants. SCARY!!! It was fascinating as their luggage came out in Beira. Gigantic gun cases that seemed to hold weapons capable of…well…killing an elephant.

Oh…and a side note. I didn’t have a window seat (despite begging and attempted bribary) the whole trip. This means that I don’t have any sense of where I am. I was stuck in a metal tube for days.

So finally I got to Beira. I stepped off onto the Tarmac and marveled at how much it reminded me of Brazil. It smelled the same, had the same heavy humidity and the same architecture. In passport control I had my first feeling of “am I ready for this”. Another American introduced herself as a nun from Seattle that runs an orphanage here. She said “bless you for coming, these people need all the help that they can get. But are you ready, really ready for this?” I told her yes but I have to admit that I was thinking no...no I’m not. But really how do you prepare…how do you get ready for poverty, sadness, death?

I went to the table set up for customs and opened my bags for the guard to see. He kept asking me if things were new and I kept telling him that my ratty jeans were not new. Thank god I speak portuguese otherwise I think he would have confiscated alot. Then came the tricky part. He found my four-pack of DVD's. It is four movies by Audrey Hepburn. Lovely classics. He thought they were pornos. I spent FOREVER convincing him that Audrey Hepburn was not a porn star. I had to take all the DVD's out and show him that everyone had all their clothes on. He finally got so frustrated that I didn't have pornos that he waved me through without looking through the things in my other bag that he really might have objected to.

I walked out of custons to find that my friends Ana and Pablo had to go to Chimoio (a city in the mountains that is another base for HAI) and so a HAI driver met me at the airport. We drove into town to a hotel called Lifeline. Minutes after leaving the airport we passed by a funeral procession. Then I really started to ask myself if I was ready for this. I still don’t know. I suppose I’ll just take it day to day.

My tiny dancer

2006-09-17T04:18:00.000+02:00

The reason that I am in NY for a week is that my sister-cousin (no I don't mean this in an Appalachian sort of way...she's more like a sister than a cousin is what this is meant to say), her husband and my three year-old niece live in NY.

Three years ago, I was lucky enough to be there for my niece’s birth. I snuggled her soon after and spent a month in a cramped one-bedroom Manhattan apartment helping my cousin feed, burp, and change her. I felt quite close to my tiny niece.

Then I left. I went back to Seattle and had to be satisfied with occasional quick visits, pictures and stories and short phone conversations in which she invariably thought I was my sister. I was therefore scared to find out if she would remember and recognize me when I got in to Manhattan. Unfortunately she was asleep in the bedroom. I visited with my sister-cousin for a while and then quietly lay down on the air mattress beside Isabel's bed.

I woke up to find a little girl (she had still been a baby last time I saw her) staring at me from her bed with her thumb shoved firmly in her mouth. I was worried that she would be frightened by some stranger sleeping on the floor next to her so I quietly said "Isabel do you remember me?" She nodded and blinked her big eyes and continued to stare. "Isabel do you know who I am?" She nodded again. "Isabel do you want to give me a hug?" Then my beautiful little niece nodded vigorously and climbed down, ran to my bed lay her head on my chest and fell asleep again. We have been inseparable ever since.

The Perils of Airplane Flirtation

2006-09-17T03:01:00.000+02:00

My row buddies on my flight from SEA to JFK were a woman from Mexico in the middle seat who was moving to Montreal and a Seattle transplant whose best friend is the coach of the NY Jets. Not that I know this at first. I find this out through a lengthy flirtation between these two as I'm trying to sleep without leaning on the passengers lined up for the restroom. As I'm drifting in and out NY Jets tries to make the moves on Ms. Mexico by talking about football. Ms. Mexico responds by dragging out a folder of her mexican girl band with large, overly styled photographs of her in various positions (not all singing). She giggles that she is a model too. They slowly get closer and closer and soon their legs are intertwined and they are checking out the line to the bathroom. NY Jets was trying to speak the few words of Spanish to her that he could muster. Two of which, accidentally, were "mi esposa" (my wife). To which Ms. Mexico is astonished but continues to flirt and cuddle up. NY Jets continues to flirt as well but begins to nervously slide his wedding ring up and down his finger. Yes....the inevitable happened. The ring flew off his hand and his attempts to find the ring by jamming his hand between their seats wasn't working.

At this time Ms. Helpful, the flight attendant, comes by to tell him that this happened before to a NY Jets player (what is with the fucking Jets and my flight?) and that he never did find his ring. This comment from Ms. Helpful sends NY Jets into a frenzy and three rows of people get up and walk to the little space between the bathrooms clutching their seat-cushions-that-double-as-a-floatation-device to their bodies as NY Jets crawls through the gunk left by thousands of previous flyers. This went on and on....Ms. Mexico and I must have been standing at the back of the plane for an hour. I was amused and glad that I was ready for a water landing at any moment but Ms. Mexico looked embarrassed and guilty and NY Jets was getting more panicked by the minute.

He finally found it. The whole place gave a weak clap (all had been a witness to their intertwined intensity) and we went back to our seats in silence. Ms. Mexico and I chatted for the rest of the flight as NY Jets looked lost in relief and guilt. Ms. Mexico wanted my e-mail and made me promise that I would visit her in Mexico or Montreal (this is strangely not even amongst the first times that my seatmates on a plane wanted me to visit them afterward) and we all left into the great grey bosom of NY.